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Nightengale: Tony Gwynn left a lasting impression

Barry Bonds was shopping Monday afternoon in San Francisco when he picked up his cell phone and couldn't believe what he was hearing. Tony Gwynn was dead at the age of 54. "Are you serious? Oh my God!'' Bonds,

Gwynn, the Hall of Famer and the San Diego Padres' eight-time batting champion, was just about everyone's favorite person in the world.

He was a baseball reporter's best friend. You could talk to him about steroid abuse in the game to an occasional hitting slump, and he would give you the same courtesy whether you're from Time Magazine or the Escondido High school newspaper.

He treated the kids picking up the dirty socks in the Padres clubhouse with the same respect as ownership.

When a certain reporter arrived into San Diego to write a piece on Gwynn's final season for USA TODAY Sports, only for the 9/11 terrorist attack to hit and postpone baseball games for a week, guess who was calling to make sure everything was OK, and bringing him to his home.

He was unquestionably the greatest player to ever wear the Padres' uniform.

The news hit hard. Sure, folks knew Gwynn was sick. Doctors found cancer in a salivary gland in 2010. Gwynn figured it was from his use of smokeless tobacco. No one knows for sure. The cancer was removed. It kept coming back. There were more surgeries. More radiation treatments. His body slowly deteriorated, and in March, he was forced to take a leave of absence from his head coaching job at San Diego State.

"That almost killed him in itself,'' says John Boggs, his best friend and agent since 1986. "He just loved being around those kids.''

Gwynn, who was undergoing physical therapy and relegated mostly to a wheelchair, managed to walk on his own inside his house May 16 - his 54th birthday. Yet, he didn't want anyone to see him in his condition. Certainly, he didn't want anyone to feel sorry for him.

"I remember when I was GM of the Tigers,'' said Randy Smith, Gwynn's former GM with the Padres, "I flew from Detroit to St. Louis to see him get his 3,000th hit. He didn't get it that night, and they were going to Montreal next. So I came down to the clubhouse to say good-bye, and he actually apologizes to me.

Gwynn, whose son, Tony Jr., plays for the Philadelphia Phillies and brother, Chris, is the Seattle Mariners' farm director, was still fighting to the end. The family was praying for a miracle when his heart gave out late Sunday night at his home. Paramedics were called. He was rushed to Pomerado Hospital in Poway, Calif. The complications from the cancer were too severe for heart and body to handle.

And a baseball world now mourns, with New York Mets broadcaster Ron Darling, and former pitcher, wondering aloud why baseball games even had to be played Monday night.

Gwynn may have been the finest hitter of his generation - with a career .338 batting average, including three seasons of .370 or higher - but there were peanut vendors at the old Jack Murphy Stadium with bigger egos.

"He's the greatest hitter of all time,'' says Arizona Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers, his former GM in San Diego, "and he could have easily been your next-door-neighbor. You see these star players walk around with that swagger, or oozing with confidence. T. Gwynn was just a regular guy.

"The only thing he wasn't good at was poker. He would come to play cards with me and Bruce Bochy and Wally Joyner and Woody Williams, and we'd beat him. And he's still be sitting there laughing.''

Oh, that infectious laugh. That high-pitched cackle. It would start slowly, rumble through his stomach, and out of his mouth, let out with a roar that wouldn't stop. It was like he had just heard God's first joke. The louder Gwynn laughed, the louder you'd laugh.

"There was no one in the world like him,'' says Jerald Clark, one of his closest friends and former teammates. "He not only made me a better ballplayer. He made me a better person. I'll always be thankful for having him in my life.''

It was Gwynn's irresistible personality that made it seem so bizarre that one of his closest friends in baseball was Bonds. Gwynn loved to be loved. And everyone loved him right back. Bonds loved to be hated. And, well, he was hated right back.

Gwynn, who wanted to see Bonds receive as much adoration as him, pleaded with Bonds one year to transform his personality. It won't hurt, he promised, to become well, merely cordial with reporters. It would make life so much easier.

Bonds listened, and promised him he'd give it a try. When they saw one another a few weeks later, and Bonds was back growling at reporters, Gwynn asked what happened.

"I tried it T,'' but I just couldn't do it,'' said Bonds. "I've got to be that edge to play this game. Sorry, I've got to be an (expletive).''

When Bonds closed his eyes Monday, he could still hear that conversation in his head, and, oh, yes, Gwynn laughing so hard at Bonds' surrender, they were both crying.

"I learned a lot from Tony, on the field and away from baseball,'' Bonds said. "We were different types of hitters, but my God, I admired him so much. I learned so much about hitting from Tony. He was one of the best hitters I've ever seen.

"Pete Rose is the best contact hitter in the history of baseball. Tony might be the second-best. He mastered the art of hitting, just like Greg Maddux mastered pitching. If you're a ballplayer today, if there's one person you want to watch a film of hitting, go get tapes of Tony Gwynn.''

Gwynn was the pioneer of hitting video. He would buy his own video equipment, tape all of his games, and lug it around from city to city. When you couldn't find him in front of his locker before games, he'd be in the batting cage or studying video. If you wondered where he was on the road after games, there was no need to look anywhere else but his hotel room. He'd be studying more tapes, or playing video games, with an occasional pizza and root beer by his side.

He was never content at just being the perennial batting champion. He demanded greatness from himself. Even with 3,141 career hits, and the highest career batting average of anyone since Ted Williams, he still was pacing at his home the afternoon of the Hall of Fame election in 2007.

"He was so nervous that day,'' says Boggs, wiping away tears, while talking in Gwynn's backyard on Monday. "I said, 'Tony, you kidding me? If you don't get in, nobody will ever get in.

"Hey said, 'You just never know Boggsy, you just never know.' ''

It was like the days they flew together, with Gwynn deathly afraid of flying. They were on a flight to Washington D.C. in 1990 when Gwynn was so unnerved by the plane's drastic plummet, his arms came out flying, and he accidentally punched Boggs in the face. Boggs, just as scared, slapped him right back.

"Tony spent the next week,'' Boggs said, "trying to map out how we were going to drive back from Washington D.C. to San Diego.''

Well, just like those flights, there was nothing to worry about at Cooperstown. Gwynn received 97.6% of the vote, and shared the podium with Cal Ripken Jr., drawing a record crowd of 75,000 fans.

The flag at Cooperstown was at half-mast Monday, and flowers and wreaths were placed around Gwynn's statue in the park beyond the center-field fence at Petco Park in San Diego.

"Statues are kind of symbolic,'' Gwynn said at his tribute. "Even when I'm dead and gone, this statue is going to be here.

"That's a way to remind people what you did when you were here. And that's a cool thing.''

Really, there's no need for a statue in San Diego We don't even need a Cooperstown plaque. Gwynn, who won baseball's Triple Crown of humanity and kindness - receiving the Roberto Clemente, Lou Gehrig and Branch Rickey awards -- will forever be remembered.

To have known Tony Gwynn is to have loved the man.

GALLERY: GWYNN THROUGH THE YEARS

Tony Gwynn passed away at age 54. He played 20 season with the San Diego Padres and collected 3,141 hits. (Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY Sports)